airplane, bright magic tree : a manifesto for newness

Airplane + Bright Magic Tree

  1. I am thinking about all the things I want to create for myself. It tingles at the ends of my fingers. Power. I am excited for it. All the things I want to bring into existence. That car. That mode of living (away from the fear). I think about my goal list & all the things that are tingling there too, vibrating & waiting with electric levitated energy to be brought out of thought & into my life. Finally traveling. The way I don’t have to wait any longer, to make things real, because all of it is mine, pick & choose, & I realize that I lack nothing that I need.
  2. Bright red-orange hair. I think about his face & then I think about the hair. First I feel a twinge of sadness, missing it – & then it makes me excited because I am soaring & it is freeing, to become all the things I couldn’t be before. I associate the hair with the separation of that person & this person. A tangible symbol that I have moved on. Reinvention, once more. 
  3. I am excited about the upcoming weeks & months. The electricity of it is happy. Thinking about the way it all flowed so damn easily last year, now & before. Keeping it rolling. Flowing, it makes so much sense now. Continual motion.
  4. I don’t even know her name.
  5. The gold-embossed owl plate sitting under the Christmas tree on top a wooden Tarot card box, reflecting the lights. Mirth incense.
  6. Looking with melancholy out the window at the full moon. Selectively brooding.
  7. I illuminated the room & nothing bad happened.
  8. Honey-dew melon colored water after painting.
  9. I am watching it finally becoming a reality. The birth of a dream, finally. I sent off the words today, & then I will be at the helm of the ship, with the ability to make magic happen, & mold the sand upwards to make mountains & sky-high pines. Outer space, to touch the stars like so many before me have done.
  10. Now that it doesn’t have to be you, it can be anyone.
  11. Email minimalism. Cutting out everything that doesn’t bring me joy. Goodbye, newsletters subscribed to from past selves.
  12. Nautical clothing. Five things I need to add to my wardrobe soon. Things to make nautical outfits out of. Suspenders, to wear with bright-toned skater skirts. White t-shirts & sleeveless shirts. Bright yellow. Combat boots.
  13. The moment I realized it isn’t worth obsessing over the Fictions told by others or seen on TV or read in magazines; to spend more time worrying about keeping up appearances than working on making magic in your own life.
  14. It is pointless trying to read things cutting them down in order to justify your opinion of them. You are entitled to what you like & don’t like. Hate & annoyance is a waste of time. Spend more time loving things.
  15. Love is light. Feel the light coming out the ends of your fingers. Feel it in your chest. Stars died & were reborn & universes were created, just so that you could feel. Spend more time leaving behind $5 bills places with messages of good vibrations & send ripples out there so people can feel them. Leave behind messages in books. Write letters to people who you may never know, wishing them good things in their lives. Make it all feel loved. Become your own personal version of Love.
  16. His music. I listened to it, lying on my back staring up at the ceiling; it was melancholy, it was hopeful, it was electric, it was truly beautiful, & it spoke to my soul in a way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. They were the anthems for the new person I had become in the time that had passed.
  17. Stop wasting your time trying to follow the comings & goings of everyone, & keeping up with what all the Joneses are doing. Focus on your own shit. You’re better off that way.
  18. How To Be Happy Single. Realize that it isn’t that important. There are better things.
  19. I will order her book soon. & the hair dye, & everything else. Phoenix. Names. I am beginning to write a new narrative for myself.

Poem for David Bowie

David Bowie - TopPop 1974 10

poem for David Bowie

I remember when I heard :
you disappeared like smoke rising; a phoenix in the open air,
a song drifting in empty through an open window
reminding me of the longing,
oh, beautiful longing,
of driving under bridges at night & through city streets
& of holding people close; oh, the beautiful longing
of reaching out to find things which are no longer there
& still hoping to feel a glimpse of them,
the things that never were but felt alive in their own heartbeats;
you disappeared the way light fades at the end of the day :
still golden even as the dark blankness of night creeps in;
a song playing on a record player on the floor
as the ch-ch-ch-ch-changes bloom inside & out,
I turned to face the music & it was there I found myself;
& the way the music sounded on the floorboards & ceiling
reminded me of why you were my hero :
reinvention, I said, over & over again repeating in the night;
you had a thousand names & a thousand faces
& like the birth & rebirth of a phoenix
you tore down & rebuilt yourself over & over
breathing life & color into the word EVOLUTION
& the flames breathed their life into you
as you became new things & new people
& found homes for all the limitless planets you wanted to become;
to prove that the outsiders were not really alone at all :
to answer your question, yes,
there is life on Mars

Poem inspired by this.

A Few Goals for 2016

Hanabii in Adachi-ku2

I am in the process of writing & perfecting my New Year’s goals. Every year, the idea of this – the process – excites me, because although I make changes to who I am & what I want constantly throughout the year, New Year’s (or at least the beginning of the year) seems like a good blank slate in which to make new decisions about where I’m heading.

I must note that in my New Year’s goal list that I make every year, the list is a running list. It is never “complete”, & it isn’t supposed to be. I add to it constantly. The list doesn’t JUST contain goals which I intend on completing in that given year – a good portion of them are things I want to do this year, but there’s also lots of long-term goals I put on there to remind myself to work towards the goals so in a future year they can be achieved.

I then break this master list down & choose specific things to work towards each week, which I write down in a notebook & highlight with a highlighter as I accomplish the tasks. Once a goal is completed, I put the date of completion after it on my master list & place it in a separate list at the bottom of my goal list document. At the end of the year, I remove the list of accomplished goals from the document & place it in a new document. I then rewrite the goal list for the new year, so that each list reflects that year alone. There’s no point in leaving the things on my 2015 list, for example, that I didn’t accomplish, so I just move them on to the next year!

The thing is, I like the basic concept of my list, but I decided that this year I wanted to make the goal list more personalized & specific. Sometimes in years prior, I haven’t changed or edited the list very much aside from adding new things to it, so I found quite a few things on the list that I was no longer interested in accomplishing.

Additionally, it wasn’t organized as well as I hoped it could be, so I decided to assign the goals to specific categories : GENERAL, ADVENTURES, BOOKS & WRITING, CREATIVITY & ART, EDUCATION, FASHION, FINANCES, FITNESS & HEALTH, HABITS, HAPPINESS, HOBBIES & RELAXATION, HOME, MUSIC, PETS & FAMILY, & RELATIONSHIPS. This way, it will be easy to find the goals for each week’s goal lists, & easy to keep my ideas organized.

Personally, 2015 ended up being a surprisingly amazing year for me – I could never have guessed how interesting & great it would end up at the start of the year (for more details, read about my New Year’s Day reflections) – & I plan on making 2016 even betterTo accomplish this, I need to have a solid plan, which I feel like I have now thanks to my reorganized goal list.

A few goals of mine for 2016 …

Organize my entire garage utilizing plastic storage bins. This means cleaning out ALL the clutter, downsizing it, & making sure I only keep things I actually need. I’m tired of having a garage filled with cardboard boxes full of things I haven’t used or thought about in years, & for the most part, if it’s not inside my house, I probably don’t need it. Goal : have a very clean, organized garage that makes it super easy to find holiday decorations & has room for impromptu disco parties.

Dye all my hair/part of my hair copper, rose gold, or red-orange. I really love my natural hair color, but in the past year I’ve really taken an interest to experimenting with my hair. I read this article & it provided additional inspiration to take the leap. I might do dip-dyed hair like I did with red hair over the summer, or I might dye all my hair if the effect is more subtle.

Learn & become somewhat decent at fencing / kickboxing / archery.

Improve at skateboarding. I want to learn how to do some basic jumps, & improve at my skateboarding in general. Time for some more practice, & YouTube!

Become at least somewhat fluent in Spanish.

Read more. Read through books I own. I own so many books that I have never read. Most of them are collected from the free or $0.25 book bins at the library or thrift stores) that I have never read. This means that I have a lot of hidden gems that I don’t even KNOW that I have, & this year, I want to find them!

See & interact with sloths & owls in real life. Sloths are one of my top favorite animals, & owls ARE my favorite. I want to be able to experience these animals in real life, as opposed to just seeing pictures or videos online.

★ Buy a Nutribullet so I can make healthy smoothies & up my intake of fruits & veggies.

★ Do more acts of love for myself. Buy myself fresh flowers at least once a month. Make my bed every day. Make time to read & listen to music more. Take more time for myself. Distance myself from negativity. Drink more tea. Honor & respect & do my best to love my body & myself unconditionally. Start living my life the way I want to, & becoming the person I feel like being. Nourish myself with healthy, wholesome foods, but also eat things less healthy & wholesome when I feel inclined to. Open the windows. Do yoga. Let myself be happy. Realize that I don’t need someone else to make my life complete, or to make my happiness complete or “legitimate”.

What are some of your goals for this year? 2016 is the year for you to finally do all those things you’ve been afraid to. 2016 is the year to start loving yourself, or increase the level of happiness in your life as much as you can, so that your life feels so good & illuminated. I hope you plan it or let it happen or both, so that this year is your most radiant year ever.

I Don’t Need You To Feel That Way

I Don't Need You to Feel That Way // Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 8

(from Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 8)

I thought that without you, I would be a shadow; that I would go back to being what I used to be before I met you. Sad & incapable. I thought of you as the foundation everything I became was built upon. It would crumble if you weren’t there. That the person I had become was dependent on you being there. I looked at the happy, light, euphoric way I felt because of you (who I became because of how you made me feel) & the sense of belonging & being “good enough” that I finally felt. I thought these feelings couldn’t exist without you being with me, like a constant & repetitive circle that required you feeding the fire to keep it going. Eventually though, I realized that what I had become because of you was mine to keep. The feelings & experiences; the things that now made me feel good about who I was; the way I’d learned to love myself – those were things that could not be taken away or forgotten or repressed. This was who I was now; it wasn’t dependent on you validating me or providing a mirror by which I could see myself. It was thanks to you, showing me how to be this person & motivating me to do so, & it was thanks to me, grabbing up & running with these feelings & discoveries, & then building upon them when I had to, in order to become independently happy. I don’t need you in order to feel that way – I really can do it on my own.

2015, How You Changed Me For the Better

Sparkler

As 2015 comes to a close, & a brand new unwritten year begins, I am thinking back on everything which occurred in the past year & to be honest, I am so amazed & impressed by all that has happened, & all that I have become. I have evolved. It was the type of year that started out somewhat rocky, but ended with a more beautiful & gentle sense of closure than I ever expected to find. The kind of year that makes me feel like maybe I need therapy or a long vacation or mere time to deal with all the phases & changes I went through, but simultaneously the kind of year that makes me feel like I have been deeply, vividly healed. It was the kind of year filled such with influential growth & complete reinvention & beautiful epiphanies & gentle, nurturing, startling, surprising change & rebirth, that I can only hope that 2016 will offer similar (or better, even more beautiful & ebullient) opportunities for happiness & becoming myself that this year has.

A brief overview of some highlights from 2015 //

★ Completed my A Thousand Cranes series by publishing the 10th book in the series, & therefore the 1000th poem in the series

★ Published 4 books (Panorama Novelty; Document Your Life : A Journal; Elephants [Wonderful Wildlife, Book 6]; & the aforementioned A Thousand Cranes, Volume 10)

★ Started my awesome zine, Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, & published 8 issues of it ★ Released my 2nd album, Confusion is Over, on YouTube

★ Launched this blog (!!!)

★ Completed many goals that I deemed made me successful, in my eyes

★ I learned an indescribable amount about myself : who I wanted to be, where I wanted to go in life, what I really wanted & really didn’t want, what my goals really were, & that I shouldn’t sacrifice my dreams in order to do all the things I was “supposed” to do. It was a year of stripping away the bullshit until what I was left with was a polished gem glittering with the authentic truth : the reveal was that all along, I’d had what I needed.

★ I finally started feeling comfortable being open with people & letting them see who I really was : ceasing to participate in boring small talk as a form of friendship or present a watered-down version of my personality just to conform to what others expect me to be or what I perceive will make me more similar (therefore “likable”) to them. A refusal to build a wall around myself, hiding in a way so that I am never vulnerable but also never loved or known. Finally becoming myself, & having the courage to do so.

★ Learning to love myself more. Learning to accept & see the greatness (& truth) in all the things that I previously found to be faults in myself. Finally being able to see myself as being good enough : always worthy of love & respect – knowing my thoughts & opinions matter, & that my choices are perfectly okay. Being able to see when I deserve better, & being brave enough to go after Better.

★ Happiness. Learning that happiness isn’t a weird elusive thing meant for someone other than me. Finally being able to say that in the past year, I have almost entirely overcome the depression & anxiety that used to be a constant shroud (although the process of overcoming has been going on for much, much longer); achieving a sort of healing happiness; finally feeling like things really will be okay, & that I am capable of feeling good about myself & my life, long term & so deeply & authentically.

2016, I am looking forward to all the magic you have to offer me; all the good things & bright spunky ebullience awaiting me. Here’s to us all, making this the best year of our lives so far.

★★★